This simple pie chart provides a simple correlation between the major traffic sources
i.e. where the traffic to your website comes from.
|
Search engines |
The search engines that visitors used to find your website |
|
Direct |
Visitors who typed the website address into their browser to visit your site. |
|
Referring sites |
Visitors who clicked on a link on another website that referred them to your site |
Business Interpretation
Understanding where your website’s traffic comes from is an important element in building your website’s success. Being able to increase traffic equates to building your online exposure and hence your sales opportunities.
Search engines
If your site is featuring in search engines then it is attracting visitors based on keyword searches
Investigate the Keyword section to see what they have been searching for that resulted in a visitor to your site.
Currently in sites I manage (i.e. Australian business websites) Google typically generates 70-98% of organic visits and interestingly Bing has an increasing presence currently at 1-3%
Direct visitors are individuals who have either:
- Previously been to your site and are now revisiting
This is an important activity in purchase decision making, where clients scan various websites before returning to the most desirable ones to make a final purchase decision - Regular visitors who are returning to check for updates, specials or to book again
- Responded to off-line adverting or an off-line referral and are visiting the website to investigate further as part of their purchase decision making process.
- Internal staff visiting the site or
Internal staff who have the website set as their home page (not recommended)
Referrals are visitors who have found your site via another (referring) website by clicking on a link. As in off-line business referrals are an key source of business, and growing successful referring sites is an important business building activity.
Analytics for business people
This is one of a series of articles to help business people extract value from their Analytics reports.
Got questions about interpreting your Analytics reports?
Leave me a comment
Cheers
Pete
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